Using Multimedia to Power Content Marketing & Tell Stories

Last year, you may have watched State Farm’s PSA about the dangers of deep-frying a turkey. Even though William Shatner added some silliness to the PSA, the campaign proved to be effective, with a decrease in the number of turkey-frying incidents.

It became a successful example of a content marketing campaign many companies will strive to replicate — and now can, with the information provided from last week’s webinar, “Brands as Storytellers: Powering Content Marketing Campaigns through Multimedia,” co-hosted by Online Marketing Institute and PR Newswire.

Kevin Wilk, divisional vice president, PR Newswire’s MultiVu, began the webinar with the discussion of paid, earned and owned media, breaking down the individual media types, and then offered some tips to increase the effectiveness of the content a brand publishes. Some of his key points included:

Paid media is when a brand pays to place ad or content on a channel.

Earned media is publicity gained when an influencer promotes a brand.

Owned media is when a brand owns a channel.

The lines between paid, earned and owned media are blurring.

Earned media is gaining importance.

More multimedia = more views. Text + photo, video and downloadable files can increase views by up to 9.7 times.

Distribute content to different channels to increase earned media, and this will increase in the number of views.

Maria Pergolino, senior director of marketing for Marketo, Inc., followed by introducing six types of visual content that can be used in a content marketing campaign: comics, memes, infographics, photos, videos, and visual note-taking.

Comics: They can be used to introduce or transition into other content, e.g., introducing a white paper.

Memes: They are not only funny, but they can share quotes or a customer case study by including a quote, photo, brand logo, etc. A meme helps tell the story in a condensed way, similar to the function of Twitter. Memes are also easily shared on Facebook, Pinterest, etc. They are a powerful form of marketing.

Infographics: They are a little bit harder to utilize. One idea is to use a white paper as the basis of the infographic. Visual content, and not just stats, are important in an infographic, so it needs to be creative and stand out.

Photos: They can tell a whole story and, like a meme, can be posted on a photo-sharing website. Photos help viewers get involved in the company’s story.

Videos: It is increasingly difficult to improve video quality, as well as use it to tell a story. It is an investment to create a video ($10,000 per minute – but it ranges), and much more expensive than taking a photo. If you decide on creating a video, you need to weave in your story.

Visual note-taking: Pergolino mentioned this is one of her favorite types of visual content. It is very engaging. This type of visual content can trigger memories of the topics discussed at an event, meeting, etc. After the event, you can take a picture of the storyboard and post it immediately to your company blog, without having to wait to write up a blog post. Visual note-taking tells a story in a visual and engaging way.

When promoting your content, use different social channels to tell your story. Use the right content for each channel.

Todd Wheatland, VP of marketing for Kelly Services, began his discussion with “what is driving this change”:

Mobile is driving change, because people want content that is quick and easy.

Being social is driving change, because people want to share content they think makes them look cool. They also want to consume and not leave the platform providing them with the content.

Content needs to work everywhere, e.g., laptop, iPad, cellphone, etc.

B2B marketers need to learn how to entertain, because people learn from people, not companies.

There is content inflation – the volume of content is increasing dramatically. However, you need to find a balance between expensive video content and a good story.

The sharing of video content on mobile devices has doubled.

There has been an increase in the amount of online video consumed, and the average length of B2B videos has decreased. People are watching videos to be entertained — keep videos short.

Trends in video marketing include the use of humor and case studies (people buy from people – relate to a human story).

There has been an increase in video content on landing pages.

Don’t skip on costs when making videos – it is a showcase for your company’s products and services.

Interesting Facts

The number of companies with YouTube channels increased by 39 percent in the last year.

There are six types of Facebook posts, but image posts get 20 times more engagement.

LinkedIn Today, which shows daily trending news and shared content, prioritizes heavily. When tweeting from LinkedIn, every RT counts as one LinkedIn “like.” This will help your news trend.

Wilk then concluded the webinar by giving an example of a successful campaign created by Multivu for Apple Vacations. He explained it is a perfect convergence of paid, earned, and owned media using one platform. In addition, it can be easily found on search engines and the content can be shared on different channels. You can view the campaign here: www.multivu.com/players/English/51242-ap…

The webinar ended with a Q&A. Here is some of the info shared during the Q&A:

If your company decides to produce a video, keep the video under two minutes. There is a higher abandonment rate (the point viewers stop watching) after two minutes. You can test the abandonment rate for your videos by creating videos with different time lengths.

The best way to make sure your content is mobile-friendly is by testing it. Load your content and see. Also, there are sites like YouTube that make your content mobile-friendly.

The goal for a company using social media is to establish a presence on the social networking site and keep people coming back.

Video content should not be telling people how awesome your company is, but needs to be engaging and entertaining to your audience. The cheapest way is to have a “talking head,” but you need to be unique and entertain. You can have a “talking head,” but should add another dimension that is more entertaining.

Don’t create accounts if you are not creating videos, posting images, etc. It doesn’t look good to create an account and then not post to it.

When using images for your content marketing campaign, you can use iStock (purchase images) or grab from your company’s material. Stay away from images that don’t belong to you, and include images your company is comfortable with you using.